It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." When he had said this, he breathed his last (Luke 23:44-45). Before I give today's devotion, a word about this weekend. There will be no Wilderness Wanderings published on Friday or Monday. Pastor Anthony will publish an episode for Saturday. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts. The written version can be found on the Bridge App and the Wilderness Wanderings website. The email will not come out till Monday. Now for today's edition. Hands. Wicked hands. "Look, the hour is near, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners" (Matthew 26:45). Later, Peter would declare that Jesus was crucified by "wicked men" (Acts 2:23). Wicked hands formed a crown of thorns and rammed it on His brow. Wicked hands lacerated His back. Wicked hands slapped Him and shoved Him. Wicked hands put nails through His hands and feet. Wicked hands hoisted up his cross beam and clunked it into place. All this while the sun shone, in the light, public. Then it went dark … not like a cloud covering the sun … but dark. The dark of night that scares us as children (and as adults). There was more here than the hands of men. Are the very hands of evil reaching out towards Jesus? Darkness! A sign of God's judgement recalling the nineth plague in Egypt before the first-born died. Darkness! So dark that God was gone? "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Silence. Yet the nail punctured hands on that cross are not clenched in anger. They remain, as always, reaching out in love. He has nearly bled to death. Nails through his body fixed him to the wood of the cross, hanging him there, barely able to gasp enough oxygen to survive. Slowly, he is suffocating to death; hung up like a piece of meat. His ought to be the ultimate image of inaction and passive acquiescence. And yet, it is precisely at this moment that Jesus takes his life out of the evil hands of his tormentors. He places it confidently in the hands of his Father. Jesus voluntarily gave Himself into the hands of sinners, the hands of "wicked people". Now he voluntarily gives Himself into the hands of God. "No one took my life. I gave it freely. Now I commit my life to my father." He will not let his crucifiers have the last word or determine the significance of his cross. All the words that Jesus has spoken, all the deeds that he has done, it is now up to God to make it all worthwhile. The next move is God's. Jesus has taken his life, all that he is, all that he has said and done and been, and given it over to the Father. The next move, the last move, as it always is, is God's. "No one can come to the Father, except through the Son", Jesus had said (John 14:6). Now the Son is dead. Now the Father is silent. Sit here for a while in the darkness. Is it possible that "wicked hands" will have the final word? Now notice this. The curtain in the temple is torn in two. It's that curtain that separates us from God, keeping God inaccessible to us unholy humans. The Son is dead. The Father is silent. But the way is open. A small sign really, that torn temple curtain. The big announcement would need to wait. It would come on Sunday. The women, those faithful disciples, would come to the tomb and find it empty. Jesus has been about his Father's business. They were in this together all along, along with the Holy Spirit. They were working out our salvation.  The torn curtain, the empty tomb. They have done it. Jesus led the way, the way to the Father is now open. Sins are forgiven. The kingdom has come. That way of sacrifice is the way of the kingdom, it broke the hold of evil. It was not the hands of evil, but the hands of love that won and still win.

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